In the Korn shell you can type...
[tt]
print ~
[/tt]
...to print your home directory, or...
[tt]
print ~username
[/tt]
...to print some user's home directory. You can use the tilda (~) to [tt]cd[/tt] or refer to files. Something like...
[tt]
cp ~smithj/.profile ~
[/tt]
This command would copy [tt]smithj[/tt]'s .profile to my home directory, regardless of what my [tt]pwd[/tt] is.
Hope this helps.